Who never noticed this icon which appears at the top every document window, to the left of the window title, that we call “proxy” icon. Although these icons seem to be added almost as a decoration to the top of the windows, they are filled with somewhat hidden features that are very useful, particularly for drag and drop. Here is an example of proxy icon, on the left of the document’s (in TextEdit):

We will see in this text the features offered by the proxy icons located in the windows’ title-bar. It is recommended to know the bases of drag and drop with files before reading this text.

Not a simple icon

Indicator of the state of a file

The proxy icon has several features, whose first and most visible is to indicate the state of a file on your hard disk : saved or unsaved. Initially, the presence of this icon implies that the document was already saved on the disc, since a document which never was will not display this icon. It is like a representation of the presence of our document on the disc: once saved, it is accessible on the disc, and it thus has its icon. Then, if the icon appears in pale colors (dimmed), then the document has modifications which were not saved. Lastly, when the icon appears with the usual colors, then the document did not undergo modification since you last save it. It’s when the icon is in the latter state that the drag and drop features are possible, more on that later.

File location indicator

Undoubtedly the most useful feature of the proxy icon is to allow you to know the position of a document in your computer’s file system. This location is named the path, since it usually consists of a succession of files (path to follow to reach the document) from the level first of your hard disk (named the root) to the file of the document. One can see the path to a document by clicking on the proxy icon (or anywhere on the title of the document) with the Command key (Apple) down.Here is an example:

Pop-up menu showing the path for the file My document The file “My document” is located in “Documents” folder, which is located in the home folder for user “latourfl”, in “Users” folder on “Disque Dur” (the hard drive). To quickly access this location by entering text instead of manipulating icons, one can choose Go to folder… under Go menu in Finder (Command-Shift G, “G” as in “go !”. We must then enter the path in the UNIX way (as we would do in the Terminal), using “/” as the root (the hard disk), we obtain: /Users/latourfl/Document/My document. Notice that while pressing the Tab key, names are automatically completed when there is no ambiguity (no similar names).

Dialogue allowing to enter the path to a file in Finder It is quite interesting to have all this information, but how can we use it concretely, you may ask ? One can then reach in only one click any files in the path ! Let us suppose that in only one click, you want to reach your Documents folder. You only need to maintain the Command key, to click on the proxy icon and to select Documents folder.Like any rule has its exceptions, Address book, although it presents a proxy icon, doesn’t allow Command-clicking. This is normal, because the Address book does not present documents located on your Hard Disk but the list of your contacts. This feature thus does not apply.

A metaphor of the original icon

You will have guessed it, it is also possible to us drag and drop with the proxy icon, because it is used as a metaphor of the original icon. It is not completely an Alias, because it is shown without you need to create it, and it behaves a little differently. We will see in the following section possible actions with this icon, in various applications.

Use of the proxy icon with drag and drop

Using of the proxy icon in the Finder

You can, when a window is open on a given folder, drag the proxy icon to move, copy or create an alias of this folder, in the same way that you would do with the original icon. You only need to “grab” the icon by keeping the mouse down on it for a small moment (if you don’t, the whole window will move instead.) Once again, use modification keys to achieve different actions, and look for the presence of a plus sign (+) or an arrow to confirm the copy or the creation of an alias. All is very simple!

Using the proxy icon in other applications

Where it becomes really interesting, is when you use this feature in other applications, with your opened documents. First notice that before being able to drag the proxy icon, you should make sure that the document was saved (and that its icon is not dimmed or pale) if not, you won’t be able to “grab” it. In all cases, if you drag your document’s proxy icon to the Finder, you will only be able to create an alias or a copy of your document to the location you choose. It is thus not possible to move the document in this manner. But it is always possible to drag it towards the Dock, for example, to preserve a link to your document.Here are other examples of uses in Panther’s applications.

Preview (and other graphic applications).

You can drag the icon of a graphic document to another application (Photoshop for example) where you will be able to edit in a more thorough way the document, in the same way you can drag the icon of a PDF document towards another application to display the PDF (in Acrobat for example).

Following the creation of a preview before printing, you can drag the icon to your location of choice (the Desktop for example) to quickly save a PDF copy of this preview.

You can drag the icon to a text document, a message you are composing in Mail or any other application able to receive graphics if you want to insert your document there.

TextEdit (and other text applications)

You can drag the icon of a text document to another text editor (for example Word) to open it in this other application.

You can drag the icon to a message you are composing in Mail to send your document as an attachment.

Address BookDragging Address Book’s proxy icon is the same as dragging the card which is currently displayed in the Address Book. This can be used to copy an address card in an e-mail and to send it to a correspondent (be careful, this correspondent must have an application that can read vCards, it is thus necessary to make a test before). Dragging the icon to the Finder creates an alias (not very useful, because the Address Book will ask you whether you want to reimport the card) or a copy of a card.

ConsoleThe Console allows you to display logs on the state of your computer. You can drag the proxy icon found at the top of the Console window to preserve a copy (or to create an alias) of a log. Note that the Console also makes it possible to display the raw content of text documents, and that you can thus drag a text document to it when necessary.

114 Responses to “Uses for the icon in windows title bar (proxy icon)”

Excellent info. Thank you for sharing. One question: The proxy icon that appears in the URL in Safari address bar - how does one manipulate that? I would like to have a logo appear on the sites I manage.

the icon for Web sites is called favicon. Basically, you need to make a 16 x 16 pixel image, at 72 dpi and save it to png. Preview offers the option to save it with 16 colors, and that should work best. Name the file favicon.ico and put it at the root level of your site (you may find other ways to do it as well as instructions on how to have more than one icon per site if you look on Google).

My site is now supposed to have a favicon, yet I think Safari takes some time to show it (I think I’ve read that). Please tell me if you see it, especially on Windows side.

Use GraphicConverter from… http://www.lemkesoft.de/en/index.htm as this gives you the option to Save As… in the Windows ICO format in the HEAD part of your HTML you need a link like… <link rel=”SHORTCUT ICON” href=”../favicon.ico”>

Well done article. I think this is especially good for those who are used to only the Windows UI, since there are many OS X UI elements that would not be so obvious to them.

For example, I would previously save a document, go to a finder window, find it and then drag it from there to a new mail window. Now, I just grab the proxy icon from the title bar and drop it over the mail icon on the dock, bingo in one step I have a new mail message with the document attached.